Nil comics

I bought no comics this week so I have no reviews.  Instead I am going through the boxes of comisc (all 5 of them!) that a friend gave me a while back and reading stuff from there.  I read Grendel: War Child yesterday which was great.  Read a Lords of Misrule and Challengers of the Unknown mini today.  Then started Morrison's JLA run (again).  I am not too enamoured with it (again).

I read 50 Shades of Grey last week and it's absolute shit.  It's a terrible romance, a terrible porn book and terribly written.  Grey is a controlling manipulative stalker, the story IS a story of domestic abuse, Ana can't and doesn't consent and the BDSM stuff is pretty light.  I'm pretty sure I've read blogs about how the BDSM in 50 Shades isn't true BDSM and I can well believe it.  It reads like someone's warped idea of it.

It's awful.  I am disgusted that this book is being marketed as acceptable porn for women.  It's awful.

If you don't know why the book is a domestic abuse story look at this website and this twitter.

I am also thinking about writing another update on my gym/diet progress. I am so near to my goal weight I sort of want to celebrate and I have lots and lots of thoughts about the dieting industry, calories and exercise, and support from others, but it seems a big topic to tackle.  I also need to do more New readers... reviews and get back to signing, but uhh, everything seems so big.  I'm not sure how to break everything down into manageable chunks.  Life seems full of work and gym at the moment, and worrying about weight. Anything else feels too big.

Anyway, I hope you are all well!

She bathed herself in a bath of bleach

Following on from yesterday's inspiring music post, here's another set of lyrics by another favourite band of mine, the Manic Street Preachers.  I've posted about them before.  I saw them again recently, and while they didn't play this song they were still pretty awesome.
This is from their second last album, and I think is about one of the women that the ex lyricist met in a mental hospital, (so, trigger warning for relationship abuse and self harm).

She'd walk on broken glass for love
She thought burnt skin would please her lover
To keep love alive and lust beside
Kind people should never be treated like...

Empty arms and aching heart
The love she sought through faltering thought
Table for two, such a sweet delight
Whispers "I love you my darling" tonight

Love bathed her in a bath of bleach
"I'll brush your hair, no one else will"
don't hurt her anymore, stop now
But salmon pink skinned Mary's still caring...

Empty arms and aching heart
The love she sought through faltering thought
Table for two, such a sweet delight
Whispers "I love you my darling tonight"

Empty arms and aching heart
The love she sought through faltering thought
Table for two, such a sweet delight
Whispers "I love you my darling tonight"

Listen to it here.  I can listen to it over and over and over and over and over.  I love it.

The Pope's visit to the UK later this year..

The F Word has an article up about it, cross posted here:

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The Catholic Church has contributed more than most to the oppression of women. Whether it’s the deaths of women in childbirth and of HIV / AIDS due to their commitment to preventing safer sex, or covering up the abuse of girl and boy children and protecting the abusers, they have consistently chosen paths which keep women controlled and ‘in their place’.
This is the church that ordered the excommunication of everyone involved in helping a 9 year old girl, who was pregnant with twins after being raped by her stepfather, to have an abortion. The church actively tried to prevent the termination, and when it failed it ordered that the child’s mother and the doctors involved be excommunicated. (Not the step-father, tellingly).

“If the B52 bombers flying over Vietnam were dropping contraceptives, the American Catholic hierarchy would have condemned that in a minute, but they were dropping napalm”
— James Carroll

The Pope has also been in the news this week for speaking out against the UK government’s equality policies, which would have required churches to stop discriminating against LGBT people. This is a man who, when he speaks, people listen. Just think what he could use his voice for. He could protest poverty, he could condemn domestic violence. But no, he speaks out against equality. Later this year, the Pope is planning a visit to Britain. Not only do I not want him here, I was really disgusted to hear that the £20 million cost of his visit will be paid for by public money. Just think how many Rape Crisis centres could be funded by that money!
The National Secular Society have started a petition to ask the Catholic Church itself to pay for the visit. As I write, it has 17,457 signatures, one of which is mine.
The Catholic Church, contrary to the guidance of many passages of the Bible, is a very rich institution. If this man, who played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, wants to come here, let him pay for it himself.
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When he speaks out against UK equality leglislation, when he colludes in the abuse and oppression of UK women, his visit should not be paid for out of UK public money.  Particularly not when we're in a recession, particularly not when there are funding cuts made across all manner of sectors.  Please consider signing the petition.

I would recommend reading the comments, if it were not for the seemingly inevitable feminists vs religion bollocks that always seems to occur.  Surely it's not too difficult to accept that feminists can believe in deitys, right?

Child abuse in Ireland

Some of y'all may have heard about the report into child abuse in the Irish Catholic Church. In case you haven't, I would urge you to have a look into it. However, these links come with a big trigger warning.

The BBC website - article from Wednesday dealing with the findings of the inquiry, descriptions of the abuse and the victims feelings and reactions.

From the Morrigan Reborn blog:
Witness reports (definite trigger warning)
A letter to the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) recommending what his next line of action should be.
Cross post from The Irish Times.

And in case any of yous are wondering what the Morrigan is, this is the description from her profile:
The Morrígan is the goddess of war, sovereignty, prophecy, fertility and death on the battlefield. Scholars debate whether her name means great queen, terror bringer or monstrous woman. She is associated with the raven, wolf and cow. She is often interpreted as a triple goddess, one part of a whole. Multiple meanings and interpretations throughout history.
A really interesting goddess.